"b. \ <* \ " 49 ((Damn it all, why is zt that no one in this company ever submits his resignation in writing?" newsman's tricks: the side-of-the- mouth quip, the nip of whiskey, the hat on the back of the head, the habit of throwing still-hurning cigarettes. onto the floor. He did not seem quite to knoV\ why he was at Harvard, and in fact did not return at the end of the freshman year. But, while these two drifted toward their respective failures', they made a strangely well-suited cou- ple. Each was strong where the other was helpless. Fitch was so uncoördinated and unorganized he could not even type; he would he on his hed in pajamas, writhing and grimacing, and dictate a tangled humanities paper, twice the re- quested length and mostly about books that had not been assigned, while Peter- sen, typing with a hectic two-finger system, would obligingly turn this cha- otic monologue into "copy." His pa- tIence verged on the maternal. When Fitèh appeared for a meal wearing a coat and tie, the joke ran in the dormi- tory that Petersen had dressed him. In return, FItch gave Petersen ideas out of the superabundance painfully cramming his bIg flat head. Petersen had absolutely no ideas; he could neither compare, con- trast nor criticize 81. Augustine and Marcus Aurelius. Perhaps having seen, so young, so Inany corpses and fires, po- lIcemen and prostitutes, had premature- . . ly blighted his mind with distrust. At any rate, mothering Fitch gave him something practical to do, and Orson envIed them. He envied all the roommates, what- ever the bond between t em-geogra- phy, race, ambition, physical size-for between himself and Hub Palamountain he could see no link except forced cohab- itation. Not that living with Hub was superficially unpleasant. Hub was tidy, industrious, and ostentatiously consid- erate. He rose at seven, prayed, did Yoga, spun, and was off to breakfast, often not to he seen agaIn untj] the end of the day. He went to sleep, generally, at eleven sharp. If there was noise in the room, he would insert rubber plugs in his ears, put a black mask over his eyes, and go to sleep anyway. During the day, he kept a rigorous round of appointments: he udited two courses in addition to tak- ing four, he wrestled three times a week for his physical-training requirement, he wangled tea invitations from Demos and Jaeger and the Bishop of Massa- chusetts, he attended free evening lec- tures and readings, he associated him- self with Phillips Brooks House and spent two afternoons a week supervising slum boys in a Roxbury redevelopment house. In addition, he had begun to take piano lessons in Brookline. Many days, Orson sa\\' him only at meals in the Union, where the dormitory neighbors, in those first fall months when their ac- quaintance was CrISp and young and differing interests had not yet scattered them, tended to regroup around a long table. In these months there was often a de hate about the subject posed under their eyes: Hub's vegetarianism. There he would sit, his tray heaped high with a steaming double helping of squash and lima beans, while Fitch would try to lo- cate the exact point at which vegetari- anIsm became inconsistent. "You eat eggs," he said. " y " H b . d es, u sal . "You realize that every egg, from the chicke s point of reference, is a new- born baby?" "But in fact it is not unless it has been fertilized by a rooster." "But suppose," Fitch pursued, "as sometImes happens-which I happen to know, from working in my uncle's hen- house in Maine-an egg that should be sterile has in fact been fertilized and contains an embryo?" "If I see it, I naturally don't eat that particular egg," Hub said, his lips mak- ing that satisfied concluding snap. Fitch pounced triumphantly, spilling a fork to the floor wIth a lurch of his hand. "But why? The hf'n feels the